I didn’t dare speak until we were back at the carriage.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, once I caught my breath from the run back. I was exhausted, which paired poorly with the concern I had about an enemy army at my home village’s footstep.

  Byron opened a secret compartment in the carriage and pulled out a small chest. He opened it, and delicately removed a simple-looking handheld mirror.

  Its simple looks were deceiving. I could tell from [Mana Manipulation] the object had a complicated mana circuit, layered in ways I couldn’t even properly comprehend. Byron saw me staring at it, and explained. “It’s an artifact.”

  I had heard about artifacts, but I hadn’t seen one before. Although, now that I was thinking about it, the orb Somnial had used to test my Will when we first met was probably an artifact, which would make this my second, assuming I hadn’t overlooked more in Somnial’s possessions.

  “How does it work?”

  Byron held it up, then touched the glass with a finger. After a moment, the reflection rippled, and he removed his finger. The rippling reflection sped up, then relaxed, revealing Somnial’s face. In the background, I could see his books; he was sitting in his library.

  “So? Was she right?” Somnial asked.

  “Whoa,” I said, surprised at hearing the sage’s voice. It was a communication artifact. In a world like this, that was probably priceless.

  I saw Somnial’s eyebrow raise in the mirror as he overheard my voice, and Byron chuckled softly. “I told you he would want to come when he found out,” the butler said, before turning serious. “Yes, it was as the queen predicted.”

  “How long?”

  Byron frowned. “From what I saw, probably still a handful of weeks away, at the earliest. If I had to guess, it would be right before the first harvest.”

  I had no idea how Byron got that from what we saw, and I realized I knew absolutely nothing about wartime tactics. Invading before harvest made sense, though. If the initial invasion was insufficient, burning the crops out would hurt Argadia and soften up the people for a subsequent wave.

  “Damnation,” Somnial muttered. “Still, it’s enough time for me to prepare. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  Byron nodded, and the mirror again rippled before settling back onto the butler’s own reflection. He delicately tucked it back into the padded chest, then closed it up, returning the chest to the carriage’s secret compartment. He had looked well enough despite the full night of running, but after a minute of using the mirror, he looked drained. It must have consumed a lot of the user’s mana to operate, and Byron’s specialty was combat, not magic.

  I changed back into my normal clothes, and slept in the carriage most of the way back to Redding. By the time we returned, Byron was dressed as usual, and the peculiar night seemed more like a dream than a memory.

  After trying to put what I had seen out of my mind, I focused on the rest of my limited break with my family. Byron surprised me by not returning to Ivarnel immediately, and instead waiting for my break to end, staying with Umbor while I spent time with my siblings, getting roped into chores.

  I visited Mishel, who had aged a lot in the last year, and we did some sparring. The night of running to and from Dulth’s developing front line had pushed my Body up to 14, so I also had that going for me now. Between how much Mishel was slowing down in his old age and my training with Byron, the spar was a lot less one-sided than the last time I had trained with the man, but he still won with his lifetime of experience.

  “I’m not sure if I should be surprised you’ve kept up with your sword training or not,” he grumbled after our bout.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m still following my path. My magic studies are going really well and I’m ahead of my class. I can do both.”

  “Cheeky brat,” Mishel grunted, but he gave me a snack like the good old days and sent me on my way with his well wishes.

  I showed Torra and Tomas some of my magic, stretching my limits while outside of Ivarnel and away from judging eyes. I let out massive plumes of flame, brilliant explosions of light, and then a huge orb of water. The crops looked a bit dry, so I fired the orb of water over the field, where it exploded into mist for the thirsty plants. Torra and Tomas clapped, and I noticed Hildan watching from the house, so I waved. He raised his hand in return, awkwardly, before heading back inside.

  “Will you be able to till our fields with magic next year?” Torra asked hopefully.

  “Definitely not,” I said, and she puffed her cheeks out in frustration. “Maybe after I graduate.”

  She counted the years I had left on her fingers, then looked at me in consternation. “I’ll practically be an adult by then! You’re useless!”

  Once Tomas warmed back up to me, he became my little shadow, and I spent some time getting to know Tomellia as best as I could, though she was still a couple years away from forming proper long-term memories of me. I told myself I would have to visit again over winter break, before I remembered the army I had seen and started wondering if the village would still even be standing by winter, given the threat of Dulth.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Finally, after days of a tenuous balance between stress and relaxation, I loaded my stuff back onto the carriage and said goodbye to my family.

  Berrel hugged me before I left. “He’s proud of you, you know,” she whispered in my ear as she held me in a motherly embrace. “He thinks what you’re doing is amazing, even if he doesn’t know how to show it.”

  I blushed, and nodded into her shoulder. “Thanks,” I murmured, glancing over at my father, who was holding Tomellia and bouncing her gently.

  She pulled back and smiled. “I’m proud of you too. Good luck with school this year.”

  I climbed into the carriage, took one more look back at my family and village, and Byron and I made our way back to Ivarnel.

  * * *

  I found Somnial in his library, as usual, but instead of one book, the old sage had a small pile of books. I looked at the names on the covers and frowned. Somnial looked up, saw my gaze, and smiled softly. “Just refreshing my memory.”

  I sat in the chair opposite him. “You should have told me.”

  “You would have said no.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have agreed!”

  Somnial sighed, setting down the grimoire he was reading. He glanced away, deep in thought, before turning back to me.

  “You aren’t like me, Tovar,” Somnial finally said. I must have made a face, so he raised a hand. “That’s not a bad thing. You don’t have the blessing of the [Sage], but you’re still a talented mage. But magical talent was all I ever had. If I hadn’t been blessed by the Guardians as [Sage], I would probably still be a decent mage, but that’s all.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but shut it before I did, thinking back over what I knew about Somnial. He was single-minded in his interest in magic, which I had figured was due to him being a [Sage], but that didn’t really explain his lack of interest outside of magic. I wanted to be a mage, but I still explored other things. Having a [Sage] blessing would positively reinforce magic training, but didn’t rule out other things. Somnial had learned some healing magic even though it wasn’t boosted by the [Sage] blessing, for example. He just didn’t pursue anything outside of magic. Perhaps that part of him was why he was selected as [Sage].

  “I’ve watched you train with Byron, you know. And I saw how you were when you came back from that dungeon after losing your hand. You aren’t like me; you’re a talented mage, and more. You’re also skilled with the sword. I’ve heard rumor that you’re actually a prodigy at mathematics, which I somehow missed when we first met. You grew close enough with nobility to be invited into their home in a single term, and now, rumor has it that you’re already talking about an engagement.”

  I frowned. Somnial was surprisingly plugged in, though that was probably all actually Byron, who simply reported back. I wondered how they had heard about the business with Felris, before I realized that Gus and Odel probably overheard enough to pass it on. Spies everywhere! I hadn’t been aware that Byron and Somnial were paying that much attention to my goings-on, though I felt like they were overestimating my actual abilities. If they knew I was reincarnated, it wouldn’t seem very special. And the engagement thing is… something else entirely.

  Somnial leaned forward. “May I ask what your stats are?”

  I gave that a moment of thought, but didn’t see the harm. “Fourteen Body, thirteen Mind, and fourteen Will.”

  “Almost even across the three,” he said, chuckling. “Above your age, as well. And you don’t even realize how impressive that is.”

  I shrugged, embarrassed at the praise. “I just try to work at it all.” I couldn’t really explain that it was because I was training for future lives. I did understand that most people only really pursued that which would actually help them in this life, which often led to a leading stat, or sometimes a dominant stat pair. Most mages in the academy would be Mind-Will heavy, whereas someone like Rikton would skew Body-Mind. Someone like Mishel or my father might have been skew more singularly towards a Body dominant build, whereas a merchant or businessperson would skew Mind dominant.

  “I couldn’t allow one mistake so early in your life to ruin all that potential,” Somnial said, pulling me from my thoughts. “Not when I had a way to help.”

  “But the cost—”

  “The burden will be mine to bear,” the old sage said with a sigh. “I tried to avoid using my blessing for political ends, but Elsa finally found a way to convince me. Unlike the demons, I don’t relish using the powers of the [Sage] on people, but in this case, it might actually be the right choice. Dulth is advancing because I won’t be here forever, and if I ignore their armies, many people will still die. Instead of it being isolated to the Dulthan army, it will also be Argadians, both innocents and our soldiers. The conflict will last longer, and more lives will be lost. It may open us up to invasion from other neighbors. I don’t have the power to stop all human war, but I do have the power to smother this one in the cradle.”

  “If… if you’re certain,” I said, standing. I didn’t really know what else to say. I wasn’t sure if I agreed or disagreed, but I also wasn’t sure how much of it was my own guilt at play instead of objective analysis. “I’ll leave you to brush up on those spells.”

  I left the library, my own thoughts swirling. The fact that my presence in this world had changed Somnial’s choices so drastically, to the point where he was probably going to be responsible for the death of hundreds, if not thousands of people, was a bit overwhelming. If I hadn’t gained [Metasurvival] and thus never forced my way into gaining Will, my sponsor might have found another ward, one who wouldn’t run into a dungeon and lose a hand, not opening Somnial up to owing Elsaria.

  Or he would have died alone, probably from that winter chest cold, I thought, frowning. Would that have been better? And then Argadia would plunge into a war with its neighbor. My family would probably be killed by invading soldiers. Isn’t this the best course of action for everyone? Those that die will be reincarnated anyway. With all that being the case, why does it feel so bad?

  I found my way to my room, where I folded my legs under myself, settling into meditation to better manage the thoughts swirling aggressively through my head. I mindfully went mindless, releasing each thought as they came. Each thought happened, and I let each one go by, passing over me, just like the events in my life.

  Time passes, and things happen. There was no way to control every event, and trying not to make a decision was itself a decision. Whether through inaction or action, there would be a single result in the end. I couldn’t be responsible for everything. All I could do, with one life or infinite lives, was try my best.

  I meditated until my Mind reached 14, matching my Body and Will.